On one level, the biggest snub for this year’s Emmy nominations is that the looming actors strike has robbed this day of its usual joy. The writers strike, in effect since early May, has already severely curtailed celebrating the best and brightest of the 2022-23 TV season. And now, with SAG-AFTRA almost certainly joining the WGA on the picket line in a matter of hours, there’s an air of doom over what should be a happy event.
On another, less existential level, what does Harrison Ford have to do to get an Emmy nomination?! The Emmys’ diamond anniversary brought widely expected nominations for previous Emmy favorites like “Succession,” “The White Lotus,” “Abbott Elementary” and “Ted Lasso.” A new shift in rules that capped the number of names voters could submit per category was expected to keep those shows from total domination of the acting categories — but they all still managed to overwhelm the supporting and guest actor categories, along with newly crowned Emmy favorite, “The Last of Us.”
Still, there were some welcome surprise nominations, especially for under-the-radar gems like “Jury Duty,” “Bad Sisters,” and, uh, “The Diplomat.” But even in the waning days of peak TV, there were still several shows and performances that were shockingly passed over for recognition: Elizabeth Olsen hacked up her friend in that laundry room in “Love & Death” and she gets nothing?!
Here is Variety’s assessment of the biggest surprises among the nominees for the 75th annual Primetime Emmy Awards.
“1923” and ”Yellowstone” miss major nods — including for Harrison Ford!
During last year’s Emmy nominations, one of the day’s headlines was that “Yellowstone” and “1883,” Taylor Sheridan’s popular Westerns about the Dutton family, were almost entirely shut out. This year, “Yellowstone” is in a precarious place: It’s been announced that Season 5 will be its last — because star Kevin Costner wants out — but it’s unclear when Part 2 of that season will even be filmed. But Paramount+ drama series prequel “1923” was star-studded, with Helen Mirren and Harrison Ford leading the way on the show, which was quickly renewed for a second season. Yet, even with the continued popularity of the (albeit troubled) “Yellowstone” mothership, and the major stars of “1923,” Academy voters continue to shun Sheridan’s “Yellowstone”-a-verse (not what it’s called — until today!) It’s also worth noting that Ford was also not nominated in comedy supporting actor for “Shrinking,” where he was thought to be an early favorite to win.
Limited series goes bananas: “Love & Death” and “Black Bird” miss, while “Fleishman Is in Trouble,” “Daisy Jones & the Six” and … “Obi-Wan Kenobi” make it in
A powerhouse category over the last few years, limited series this year was a far more fluid beast, which is likely why there were some major upsets this year. HBO’s “Love & Death” — the second limited series about the real-life axe murderer Candy Montgomery, following 2022’s “Candy” with Jessica Biel — suffered the most, with only a single nomination, for Jesse Plemons for supporting actor. Taron Egerton and Paul Walter Hauser both earned acting nods for Apple TV+’s prison drama “Black Bird,” but the show missed for series.
On the flip side, Amazon Prime Video’s folk rock series “Daisy Jones & the Six” was a major nominee with nine nominations, including for limited series and lead actress for Riley Keough. FX’s “Fleishman Is in Trouble” also cleaned up with seven nods, including for limited series, lead actress (Lizzy Caplan) and supporting actress (Claire Danes)
But the biggest shock was the inclusion of Disney+’s “Star Wars” series “Obi-Wan Kenobi,” which debuted over a year ago and was tepidly received by many fans. Along with four below-the-line nominations, the show still managed to pick up a series nod, echoing the surprise nomination for “The Mandalorian” in drama series in 2020. The Force is indeed strong with this show.
Brian Cox — and Jeremy Strong and Kieran Culkin! — are all nominated for lead actor for “Succession”
Three “Succession” stars all competing for actor in a drama? Sounds like an HBO show we once watched in which members of a family all tried to kill one another in order to take control of their company! Jeremy Strong has won here before, but it’s Kieran Culkin’s first time in lead (he’s been nominated twice in supporting). Brian Cox’s nomination feels symbolic of the significance of his performance over the four seasons of “Succession” in total — after all, Logan died toward the beginning of Episode 3, so this is a bit nuts (though also kind of great). We’ll see whether the multiple nominations splits the “Succession” vote, paving the way for a win for Pedro Pascal (“The Last of Us”), Jeff Bridges (“The Old Man”) or — for his last shot in this storied role — Bob Odenkirk for “Better Call Saul.”
“Jury Duty” gets major Emmy love
Without question, the sleeper show this TV season has been “Jury Duty,” the Amazon Freevee comedy that put one unsuspecting real person — 30-year-old project manager Ronald Gladden, a masterstroke of good casting and good fortune — inside a fake trial just boring enough to seem real and just wacky enough to be hysterically funny. But its hybrid nature — not quite a reality show, not quite a scripted show — kept its Emmy prospects in limbo. So to see “Jury Duty” earn nominations for comedy series, supporting actor (for James Marsden playing a wildly self-involved version of himself) and writing is maybe one of the coolest, most delightful things to happen at the Emmys in a long time.
Keri Russell is nominated for “The Diplomat” and other fun surprises in drama lead actress
No shade to Keri Russell — “Felicity” and “The Americans” 4eva! — and no shade to “The Diplomat,” a political drama that was popular on Netflix. But the drama actress category, which is often ultra-competitive, is very odd this year. Neither Imelda Staunton (“The Crown”) nor Helen Mirren (“1923”) received expected nominations, with previous winner Elisabeth Moss getting in for “The Handmaid’s Tale” and newbie Sharon Horgan receiving a nomination for Apple TV+’s delightful “Bad Sisters” (which she also wrote).
All of that makes “Succession’s” Sarah Snook’s decision to move from the supporting category, where she’s historically been placed, to lead actress a move something her calculating character Shiv Roy would applaud.
Kumail Nanjiani gets a nomination for “Welcome to Chippendales”
“Welcome to Chippendales” got a decent reception when it was released last year, yet Kumail Nanjiani’s nomination for limited series lead actor was a surprise on Emmys morning. It was expected that either Steve Carell (for FX’s “The Patient”) or Jesse Eisenberg (for FX’s “Fleishman Is in Trouble”) might be recognized here, but Academy voters favored Nanjiani. It’s also worth noting that both Annaleigh Ashford and Juliette Lewis were also nominated for “Welcome to Chippendales” in the limited series supporting actress category, so it seems safe to assume that voters loved the acting on this show! (Not enough for the series itself to be nominated, though.)
Melanie Lynskey nominated twice!
Who doesn’t love Melanie Lynskey? We’re all here for the Melassance! (A stretch, we know.) Academy voters obviously agree, and have nominated Lynskey twice this year, once for drama lead actress for her role as Shauna in “Yellowjackets” (her second nomination in a row) and the other for guest actress in a drama in “The Last of Us.” On “The Last of Us,” Lynskey played Kathleen, a terrifying rebel leader Joel and Ellie came across during their travels. We’re scared of both of these characters, but we root — always — for Melanie Lynskey.
“Only Murders in the Building” stars Steve Martin and Selena Gomez shut out
Hulu’s mystery-comedy took home 17 Emmy nods for its first season — and then walked away largely empty-handed, with only three wins (including Nathan Lane for guest actor). Still, basically everyone expected stars Steve Martin and Martin Short to repeat their nominations for comedy actor — and maybe Selena Gomez would finally be recognized for her critical position in the “Only Murders” comic triumvirate.
Alas, this year, along with the show for comedy series, only Short and Lane repeated their acting nominations — Martin and Gomez were shut out. Overall, “Only Murders” still did well, with 11 nods, but since Season 2 premiered over a year ago and ran through the summer, perhaps it was just not fresh enough in voters minds.
No “Abbott Elementary” in comedy writing?!
Last year, “Abbott Elementary” star and creator Quinta Brunson made Emmys history as the second Black woman ever (and first solo Black woman — Lena Waithe had won with Aziz Ansari in 2017 for “Master of None”) to win an Emmy for comedy writing. This year, “Abbott Elementary” wasn’t nominated in the category at all, even though it could certainly win the top prize. Writers for other comedy favorites like “Barry” for its series finale, “The Bear,” “Ted Lasso” and “Only Murders in the Building” were nominated. And then there were surprise nominations for the Freevee hit “Jury Duty,” and for the brilliant but canceled “The Other Two,” for the episode “Cary & Brooke Go To An AIDS Play.”
“Survivor” returns to reality competition series!
There wouldn’t be a reality competition category at the Emmys without “Survivor,” which ignited the reality TV revolution when it first premiered in 2000. The show has remained one of the precious few bedrock mainstays of network TV since then, churning out 648 episodes over 44 seasons to date. But it had not been nominated for the reality competition Emmy since 2006. 2006! Seventeen years ago! George W. Bush was president! The iPhone didn’t exist yet!
All the other nominees in this category this year — “The Amazing Race,” “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” “Top Chef” and “The Voice” — have won. “Survivor,” somehow, has not. Will that change this year as well?
A #Scandoval-fueled “Vanderpump Rules” invades the Emmys!
Bravo has gone hard campaigning for an Emmy nomination for “Vanderpump Rules,” which premiered in January 2013 — and it worked! The show’s now Emmy-nominated 10th season garnered national headlines because of the cheating scandal at its center, deemed the #Scandoval, which caused Bravo to pick up cameras again after filming had ended in order to document the breakup of Tom Sandoval and Ariana Madix, after Madix discovered his affair with fellow cast member Raquel Leviss. The resurgence of “Vanderpump Rules” illustrates that reality shows are only as interesting as their cast members’ actual realities — and in the case of the #Scandoval, boy, it was a doozy.
Not be overlooked: Not only did “Vanderpump Rules” receive a nomination for unstructured reality series, but its editing team was also nominated for the episode “Lady and the Glamp,” which featured a sequence in which cast member Lala Kent narrated to her friend James Kennedy the story of Leviss sleeping over at Sandoval’s house. The story was told employing fast-forwarding and rewinding, and a moment in which Lisa Vanderpump’s husband Ken Todd announces the news of the sleepover in a much-memed moment. When asked about that episode, “Vanderpump Rules” executive producer Alex Baskin told Variety it was the work of “great editors, and a really great story team — they were encouraged to try some things, and it worked brilliantly.” And now, they have received an Emmy nomination for their troubles!
No “Saturday Night Live” cast members were nominated
Since 2008, at least one cast member of “Saturday Night Live” has earned an Emmy nomination for supporting actor or actress in a comedy — Kate McKinnon and Alec Baldwin have even won. But despite standout moments from several cast members for the show’s 48th season — including Ego Nwodim, James Austin Johnson, Bowen Yang and Cecily Strong (who left the show this season) — no one in the “SNL” cast made the cut for this year’s Emmys. “SNL” did at least earn nods for hosts Pedro Pascal (also nominated in lead actor in a drama for “The Last of Us”) and Quinta Brunson (also nominated in lead actress in a comedy for “Abbott Elementary”).
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